Jim, Eddie, Billy and Kenny were joined by Len Rooney from EEKCC. After an early start we met up at the Motor cafe at Ballinluig for a breakfast and to stock up on ketchup and brown sauce. (see Eddie for details on how to do this without being caught). The plan was to come off the A9 at Dalwhinnie and drive to the northeast end of Loch Ericht and paddle our kayaks 13 miles to Ben Alder bothy at the other end of the loch.
Our first obstacle was a keypad controlled barrier however Kenny's safe-breaking skills were called upon and the code was soon hacked and the barrier magically rose allowing us access to the water. Note this was a 10 digit keypad with goodness knows how many combinations, Kenny got it on his second attempt, misspent youth ??
The boats were quickly loaded and we were off paddling into a slight headwind, the only mishap being Billy's attempt to walk on water while entering his kayak, predictable result. (with much laughter and no sympathy). Jim and Eddie meanwhile were showing their kayaking skills and we were soon making good progress in the sun at 16 minute mile pace, as verified by Jim’s Garmin which beeped every mile we completed. This was against a headwind for approx 3miles after which the wind disappeared completely, making progress a lot easier.
The Ben Alder estate is owned by a Swiss banker and we had a quick pause for photographs at the £3,000 per night Ben Alder Lodge. Our bothy was not quite as salubrious and by late afternoon when we arrived it looked as if we had the place to ourselves, the solitude was broken by a Duke of Edinburgh group who were camping outside while their 3 leaders stayed in the bothy.
Up early on Friday we headed for a walk up Ben Alder, a Munro with a summit plateau protected by huge cliffs and steep drops requiring accurate navigation skills, Jim and Kenny kept us on track, and Billy had his GPS to check their accuracy, pretty good actually. We decided to take a route off the hill which involved a bit of scrambling, the thick mist helped disguise the consequences of a slip on the wet rocks. We got back to the bothy tired after our day wandering about in the mist to find a fisherman group from Paisley and friends of the gamekeeper who had ferried them down the loch. They were staying at a nearby estate cottage and celebrating a 60th birthday party. After a pasta dinner we settled down to a refreshing beer and built a fire, the bothy equivalent of a television, according to Eddie.
Saturday morning saw us paddling back towards Dalwhinnie and it was either a tailwind or the thought of getting back to civilisation, that saw us reaching Dalwhinnie in 4.5 hours, about an hour quicker than our outward journey.
All in all a great trip, with special thanks to Kenny the camp cook who kept us well fed with a Spanish dinner on Thursday night and Italian on Friday night, Jim stated he has never been so well fed in a bothy before.
Jim and Eddie did extremely well the kayaking, paddling with wind conditions which varied from head on, to side on and eventually from behind and never missed a stroke, definitely no longer amateurs at this game.
Photographs on these links (note there are a lot !!)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/30545490@N06/albums/72157669583651636
https://www.flickr.com/photos/76180108@N06/sets/72157667052624773
Billy and Kenny
3 comments:
Huge thanks to Kenny, Billy and Len for equipment and expertise. It is not often you look forward to something and it turns out much better. Loved every minute.
Why is it I always break out in a sweat when I see mist shrouded hills and Kenny holding a map! Thank goodness Jim was there. Looks like a spectacular weekend.
Alan
Why is it I always break out in a sweat when I see mist shrouded hills and Kenny holding a map! Thank goodness Jim was there. Looks like a spectacular weekend.
Alan
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